As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems, including servers and workstations, are often grouped into distributed computer networks. These networks typically include a client-server architecture in which the servers access storage, including shared storage between the servers, in response to requests from client computers of the network.
The servers of a distributed network may include one or more virtual operating systems such as a virtual machine running on the host operating system and the host software of the server. Multiple virtual machines may be included on a single physical server. The presence of one or more virtual machines on a single physical machines provides a separation of the hardware and the software of the compute system. Each virtual machine could be dedicated to the task of handling a single function. As an example, one virtual machine could be mail server, while another virtual machine present on the same physical server could be a file server.
In some instances, a copy or a clone of a virtual machine is created for an active file system or application. Typically, the creation of a clone usually includes shutting down the entire virtual machine including the application and operating system prior to cloning such that a copy of the data is created.
Because cloning requires that the application and operating system are shut down, the application will be unavailable for use until the cloning operation is completed, which is usually dependent on the size of the virtual disk file. For example, referring to FIG. 1A, a cloning method copies the application and operating system in which a virtual machine including an application and operating system is moved from a first server 1a to second server 1b. Servers 1a and 1b form a part of shared network system 2 such that the virtual machine is hosted generally on a server 1a behind virtualization layer 4. During cloning 7a, the original application and operating system 5 is removed from server 1a and copied to server 1b at virtual machine 6. Since a copy of the application and operating system is made, the process is time consuming and not performed in real-time or instantaneously.
Referring to FIG. 1B, a migration method is used to move a virtual machine including an application and operating system from a first server 1a to second server 1b. During migration 7b, the original application and operating system 5 is removed from server 1a and copied to server 1b at virtual machine 6 such that the virtual machine does not exist on server 1a after it is moved to server 1b. In some instances, the migration technique may set up pointer switch 8b to set the new location on server 1b in lieu of pointer switch 8a. 